former case obviating any future discussions as to the question of "Church and Church Episcopacy in Wales;" and in the latter, the improper scenes which occur in our courts of law and justice. That through the ignorance of the language in those appointed to Welsh sees, and Welsh benefices, great abuses have crept into the Established Church in Wales, causing disunion and dissent, no one will be bold enough to deny. The Welsh, as a nation, are essentially religious in their tendency, as generations have proved. No popular fanaticism, no wild apostacy, has ever found favour amongst them. But when strangers, ignorant of their language, ignorant of their ancient customs, which they have been taught from their childhood to hold most dear, are appointed as their pastors, can it be wondered that in every valley, and on every mountain side, they have erected chapels of their own, served by pastors whose language they can appreciate, and who also respect their customs. If in so sacred a matter national feelings are disregarded, may it not also be said of all that appertains to the Welsh judicature, that the very objects themselves for which the courts of law were established are rendered nugatory by the lingual inefficiency of nearly all the law officers of the crown. Every one who has attended a trial, civil or criminal, in Wales, cannot fail to have remarked this. The whole proceedings are unfair to the accused in criminal cases, or the parties concerned in all civil matters. One of the most boasted privileges, namely, trial by jury, is inefficiently and imperfectly carried out. The witnesses, it is true, are occasionally examined through the medium of an interpreter; but more frequently the examination is conducted in the English tongue, the speeches of counsel, and the summing up of the judge, are all made in English, to a jury of twelve men, who, upon their oaths, have been sworn to do justice to the best of their power; and yet the majority of that jury, in nine cases out of ten, are wholly ignorant of the language in which the principal part of the proceedings is conducted. Oftentimes interpreters are made use of, to translate for the benefit of the court and counsel the replies of Welsh witnesses, and it is not at all a case of unfrequent occurrence that such translation is incorrect, or more generally falls so far short of the real meaning of the reply as to become a subversion of justice. A ludicrous instance of the ignorance of the language is reported to have taken place before a well known judge, who after, in the most impressive manner, passing sentence of death, requested the interpreter of the court to explain what he had said to the prisoner. The interpreter turning to the prisoner said, "y mae ef wedi eich crogi." Whereupon the judge is reported to have exclaimed that he was not aware before that the Welsh was such an expressive language. The When we see the numerous works that have issued from time to time of late from the foreign presses at Paris, Geneva, and elsewhere, bearing either on the Welsh language, or on the history and antiquities of the Cymry, and the great learning and ability displayed therein, showing that the authors are thoroughly conversant with the language, we cannot help regretting that the works issued from the English and Welsh presses, on the same subject, are not more numerous. Let us however hope that the spirit of emulation will get abroad, and that the knowledge of Welsh, and the past history of its inhabitants, will become to all as "Household Words." study to Englishmen may at first appear distasteful, and somewhat strange: every language, every history is so at the commencement: but when we begin to master the subject, our sympathies are awakened; we see these matters in a different light; all the old associations of a noble race become ours; we enter into their national struggles, and the heart warms with affection as we read the glorious deeds achieved of old by some valiant warrior who, in defence of his country, has fought and died; of some divine who has preached the welcome news of the true faith to willing ears; or of the poet who, in the height of inspiration, by his warlike strains has rallied the retreating and nearly vanquished band of patriots, and incited them on to victory-or, when the heat of battle over, he has, in heroic verse, to a listening and attentive crowd, chaunted the praises of those whose names still live in history-we feel irresistibly drawn on by the enchantment of the pursuit, until we so fully enter into it that we become proud of the nationality of the people whose joys and struggles become our own; we seek out all their old traditions, their manners, and their customs, until the pursuit becomes one of pleasure and delight, in lieu of laborious study. Every Englishman will find these remarks especially applicable to himself with reference to the subject selected for this essay. He will find that he is studying the language and history of his own race, and that race one from which, as from a long line of ancestry, he will feel a pride in claiming descent. He will learn to reverence and respect the Welsh as a nation; feel that they have just cause to be proud that they still retain their mountain country; and from the heart rejoice that—— "Yet the same harp which Taliesin strung, And the same chords in which our sires delighted, That losing nought, wins all the Saxon won, Bulwer's King Arthur. CAMB. JOUR., 1859. с 10 HISTORY OF THE BRITISH BARDS. By the Late IOLO MORGANWG, B.B.D. (Continued from p. 363.) SCHOOL OF TALIESIN. II. THE School of Taliesin derives many of its peculiarities from the Roman literature which had in his time established itself in Britain; hence it is that some of our most favourite metres have their origin, as the Toddaid, HEXAMETER, Ynglyn unodl union, DISTICH, HEXAMETER and PENTAMETER, &c. Those who in all ages have written on the principles or rules of our versification attribute these, and others that are obviously of Roman origin, to Taliesin, i. e., the introduction of them into our language; this has been so generally and so uniformly asserted that we have no reason to doubt the fact. Of these metres, however, we find, and but barely find, samples in what now remain of what are acknowledged to be the genuine poems of Taliesin. His cotemporary, Aneurin Gwawdrydd, affords a more ample supply of specimens in his Gododin. Taliesin retains a greater variety of the metres of the primitive school than any other bard of his period, and (though their introduction has been attributed to him) has fewer than any one of his age of those metres derived from the Latin school of versifying. An embellishment was introduced into the versification of this that was unknown to the primitive; this consisted in a species of rhythm, in lines of eight syllables or upwards, that required two internal pauses, and each pause to rhyme to the other, as,— "Golychaf i Gulwydd arglwydd pob echen Ceint rhag meibion Llyr yn ebyr Henfelen."-Taliesin. Trychant trwy beiriant yn cattäu, "Afallen beren burwen o flodau, A minneu ai gwyr synwyr gorau."-Merddin. Alliteration was not known to this school; it had not till some centuries later been introduced; it had, however, one peculiarity (if not rather a continuation of a primitive usage); this was a method of connecting the several stanzas in a poem so that they could not be misplaced, or otherwise arranged than as the poet intended them; this has been, by the continuators of this school, termed Cyrch gymmeriad. The English word precapture gives a tolerable idea of this term; it consists in beginning the second stanza with a word that rhymes to the last word of the first, the third with a word rhyming to the last word of the second stanza, and so on through the poem, as follows:- "Ceingeneis canaf Byd undydd mwyaf Lliaws a bwyllaf, Ac a bryderaf. "Cyfarchafi feirdd byd Nam dyweid Pryd, Py gynneil y bŷd Na syrth yn eissywyd. Py ar yd gwyddei Taliesin. Another mode of linking the stanzas, or couplets, was to begin the second with the last word of the first, the third with the last word of the second, &c., thus, |